 |
| Me with my Grandmother, my Mother and my Great Grandmother |
Southern women are often portrayed as
frail women drinking tea in fancy dresses, they are seen helpless
women who seem to need the assistance from men at every turn.
Nestled in the Tennessee, we are not exactly Southern and not exactly
mountain folk, but we have some common traits. Don't be fooled by
the exterior, we are tough as nails and we are devoted to family.
At this point, I had to take a break
from writing this story because when I looked up the dates, I
realized that I was only four years old when this happened. For some
reason, it seemed to me that I was a little older.
The winter that is four was one that I
will always remember because it had such a powerful influence on me.
For Christmas, my Grandmother gave me
an electric train and she gave me bunkbeds for my room. These were
lavish gifts, not the sort of gifts that most children received. The
train was a Gilbert Silver Bullet and the track was laid out on the
floor in a small circle. It had an engine, a coal car, and two
passenger cars.
The bunkbeds were maple and you could have
bunkbeds or two single beds. They also had a ladder that you could
use to climb to the top bunk and a rail to keep you from falling. My
Mother made matching bedspreads from a mattress protector (think of
an all white quilt) on which she appliqued puppies and kittens that
she cut from a yard of patterned fabric. All was well in my world.
Just after Christmas, everything
changed. Both my Grandmother and my Great Grandmother were sick and
in the hospital. My Mother was gone a lot and I spent time with
other family members and even stayed with a neighbor. I had never
stayed with anyone who not part of my family before.
A few weeks later, my Mother told me
that my Great Grandmother had died. But when she died, we did not
go to her funeral. I was puzzled by this because I could not
understand why we did not go. I was angry at my Mother for not going
because I knew that when someone in your family died, you go to the
funeral. Specially, you go to the visitation at Rose Funeral Home,
you go to the survive, then you go to the cemetery. After you have
done all of these, the family sits down to a meal consisting food
brought by your friends and neighbors.
When my Grandmother died two weeks
later, I understood that Mother could not leave her Mother. Well,
maybe I didn't actually understand this at the time.
My
birthday was just a couple of weeks after this happened. Mother
baked a birthday cake for me and I had presents that were wrapped and
on the coffee table. At the time, I didn't realize how difficult this
must have been for her. It was my birthday and I was five years old!
I don't know if there is a word for
this, but I call it doing what is in front of you. If you lived on a
farm, you still had to milk the cows, no matter how sad you were.
Your family's life depended on your being able to raise food that
would feed you family. When people moved to the city, they brought
these values and this work ethic with them.
I am not sure if
Mother realized the lessons that I learned from her that year. I
certainly did not realize how difficult this must have been for her
to have a party so soon after her Mother's death, but I do now. They
have guided me through some of the most difficult times of life. I
hope that I have passed them on to my children.
